OF VALUE.

27
of degrees; it may be greater or less; which
means, that the former object may command a
greater or smaller quantity of the latter. In
no other sense can the power of one commo-
dity to purchase another be said to increase or
decrease. As the value of an object a, canbe
Xpressed only by the quantity of some other
object B, 50 an increase in the value of A, can
be expressed only by an increase in the quan-
tity of B.

Simple as these conclusions appear to oe,
and directly flowing from the definition of
value universally adopted, Mr. Ricardo has
drawn contrary inferences. Although he agrees
with Dr. Smith, in defining value to express the
power of purchasing, and although, in the very
first proposition in his book, he speaks of the
value of a commodity as synonymous with the
quantity of any other commodity, for which it
will exchange *, yet in another chapter of his

* “The value of a commodity, or the quantity of any
other commodity for which it will exchange, depends on the